The 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey

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2. To download more books – visit www.readtowake.com – the home of best-selling book summaries
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a #1 National Bestseller book on personal
development, written by Stephen R. Covey. It has sold more than 15 million copies since its
first publication in 1989.
In this book Covey describes seven habits of successful people. Habits are the activities that
we repeatedly do in the same manner, day after day. Our character is a composite of our
habits. If you want to become successful, you need to adopt these seven habits.
The author says that whatever your present situation is, you are not your habits. You can
replace old destructive habits with new habits of effectiveness, happiness and trust-based
relationship. There are many honest people in this world like you who are willing to change
the destructive habits. You just need to examine and find out your bad habits to replace them
with these seven habits.
The seven habits described in this book are based on natural laws and if you adopt them,
they will surely bring the maximum long-term beneficial results for you.
People perceive the world differently. We all have our own paradigm and we see things
according to our paradigms. Look at the picture on the right side, some people would say
that it is a picture of an old lady while others see a beautiful lady in this picture.
If you want to change your life, you must first change the way you look at the things, you
should focus on improving your personal attitude and behavior.

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After describing the importance of attitude and behavior, the author reveals the seven most
effective habits that are following:
1. Be Proactive
2. Begin with the End in Mind
3. Put First Thing First
4. Think Win-Win
5. Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood
6. Synergize
7. Sharpen your Saw
1. Be Proactive
The most important things that the humans have is their ability to think. Animals do not have
this ability. Only humans have the freedom to choose their thoughts. You can control your
mind. You have the ability to control your moods, feelings and thoughts and by doing this
you can change your circumstances and conditions.
Proactive means taking initiatives. You need to become proactive, you need to take full
responsibility of your life. You have ability to take actions and make things happen.
There are two kinds of problems or obstacles we face in our life. First type are the problems
you can do something to reduce them, while other problems just occur in your life, you don’t
have any control on them.

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The author suggests to focus your time on what you can control instead of spending your
time focusing on events that you can not control. Take some actions to reduce your
problems.
2. Begin With The End In Mind
In this chapter, you need to imagine, what the other people are saying and thinking about
you if you are dead and they have come on your funeral?
What character would you like them to have seen in you? What achievements and
contributions would you want them to remember? The things you want them to say about
you, are your core values so from now you should work on those values.
You should develop a personal mission statement that focuses on what you want to be and
do in your life.
3. Put First Thing First
Put First thing First is the most powerful and effective habit, the author has written a whole
book on this habit. This is the habit of time and life management.
All the things you do daily can be divided in two categories they are either urgent and
important or not urgent and not important. You should ask yourself this question “What one
thing could you do that if you do on regular basis would make a tremendous positive
difference in your life?”

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You should remind yourself the Pareto principle that states that 80% of the results flow out
of 20% of the activities. You need to focus on those most important 20% activities that
generate 80% result. You should not spend time doing unimportant tasks. Set priorities to
become more productive.
4. Think Win-Win
Think Win-Win habit teaches you to work together to seek mutual benefits. This habit
encourages you to see other people as cooperative rather than competitor.
It is based on the theory that there is plenty in this world for everybody and one person’s
success should not be achieved at the expense of the success of others.
Normally people think that if I win you lose. Most people have been deeply scripted in the
win-lose mentality since birth. We are being programmed that this world is a zero sum game
where some people win while other lose.
To become more effective you should work with other people to get leverage of the abilities
and strengths of other people. This habit is essential to become successful.
5. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Covey explains that Communication is the most important skill in life. There are four
basic types of communication – reading, writing, speaking and listening.

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The most important factor in good communication is listening carefully what the other
person is saying. Unfortunately people spend most of their time to improve their
speaking, writing and reading skills. They don’t try to improve their listening skills.
They don’t listen what other person is saying instead they are thinking in their mind
what they are going to say next.
The author says that if you want to become effective, you first need to listen and
understand what the other person is saying.
A good salesperson first understands the needs of others, a good doctor first
understands the problems of the patient, a good lawyer first gathers all the facts to
understand the situation.
6. Synergize
Synergy can be defined as the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. For example if
you plant two plants together, they will grow better than if they were separated, two
pieces of wood together will hold more weight together than they will hold separately.
According to this principle one plus one equals three or more. The way one man and
one women bring a child into this world is synergistic. To be effective we must value
the physical differences between people to create new opportunities for each other.
Synergy is almost as if a group of people collectively wish to work together to create
some productive things. Synergy is making improvements and creating something new
with the cooperation of others.

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7. Sharpen the Saw
The habit number seven encourages you to take some time off to sharpen the saw
(improve your skills). The greatest asset you have is –You. Your personal productivity
will decrease without proper care.
The author recommends that you need to invest some time and money on yourself, to
improve your skills. This is the best investment you can ever make.
The author says to follow below written steps to sharpen your saw:
• Physical– Health exercise.
• Spiritual – Meditation and Religious lectures.
• Mental – formal education, seminars, books and autobiographies.
• Social/Emotional– leadership, communication and cooperation.
Final Thoughts on This Book
This is just a brief summary of this amazing book, the full book is very fascinating and
comprehensive. It has solid advice that can improve your life. Everyone who wants to
become more productive and effective should read this book.
No personal development book’s list can be complete without including this book. I highly
recommend this book to you, buy it, read it. Be proactive. This is a super success book.